


Kitty Pretty

by TheDarkChocolateLord



Category: Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger
Genre: Catboy Bronte, Fluff, Gen, Humor, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Oneshot, bronte gets cat ears for a day, canon compliant I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:00:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28745127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkChocolateLord/pseuds/TheDarkChocolateLord
Summary: At the nobility solstice gala last night, someone slipped Kitty Pretty into Councillor Bronte's drink, giving him cat ears and other feline features.
Relationships: Councillor Bronte & Councillor Oralie (Keeper of the Lost Cities)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	Kitty Pretty

8:07 AM

Bronte Pyren was not a morning person.

He was _especially_ not a morning person after the all-nobility gala last night, which had gone far past midnight. As a Councillor, he had been stuck there for the entire duration, five hours of mindless small talk, dancing, and sheer boredom. And while his fellow Councillors had most of the morning off so they could sleep in, he had an inflicting session with Sophie this morning (next year, he was going to push for the nobility ball to be on a weekend, who _cared_ if it didn't align with the winter solstice), which meant that he was going to be living off of six hours of sleep, coffee, and spite. 

To be fair, that wasn't far from a normal night for him.

Bronte rolled out of bed and headed for his bathroom to shower. He shoved open the bathroom door, glimpsed himself in the mirror, and— _what had happened to him_?

He had _cat ears._

Against his will, he stepped closer to the mirror. His entire face had changed: his eyes had slit pupils, his nose was flatter and a bright pink, and he had _whiskers_. 

At least he didn't have a tail. 

It must have been someone playing a prank, yet it could have been anyonelast night at the nobility ball: annoyed Mentors or Regents, a fellow Councillor messing with him, someone who thought it would be funny…..

Bronte returned to his bedroom to pace. He _needed_ a solution: he couldn't let Sophie see him like this, let alone the rest of Foxfire, the goblins he was meeting with in the afternoon, his fellow Councillors, and Team Valiant. Which meant that he had to find an antidote. 

While there were apothecaries scattered across all of the elven cities, they all had their various specialties, and only one store was zany enough to sell anything like this.

Shower forgotten, he took out his Imparter. "Show me Kesler Dizznee."

8:12 AM

"What do you _mean_ , the effects won't be reversed for twelve hours?" 

Kesler Dizznee wasn't even trying to hold back his laughter. "Sorry, Councillor. Kitty Pretty is one of our more intense appearance-changing elixirs, because it alters your hearing as well—you might have noticed the change to your ears."

 _Might have_ noticed? 

"For that reason," Kesler continued, "it's safer to let it fade out naturally. It's also why the elixir takes several hours to take effect. I'm sorry that someone slipped it into your drink, but—" He burst into giggles. "Wear a hat, I guess?"

Bronte sighed. "There's nothing you can do? Can't you look at your records for who buys what and see who most recently purchased—" He refused to say 'Kitty Pretty'—"that elixir?" 

Kesler sighed. "We _do_ have digital records, but Kitty Pretty sells fairly well and has a long shelf life. Kids buy it because they want to look like a cat, teens buy it for pranks, even adults buy it out of sheer curiosity. And if someone slipped the elixir into your drink last night, when you were at a crowded ball with almost every member of the nobility, it's highly unlikely that we'll be able to track down a culprit, especially since they could have gotten the elixir from a friend or family member. And…."

"And what?" Bronte demanded.

"And you have to admit that it's at least a little funny, right?" 

"I have an inflicting session with Sophie today! All of Foxfire is going to know!"

Kesler didn't even notice, he was talking to someone offscreen. "I'll be there in a minute—"

A redheaded girl phased through the wall behind Kesler and appeared on the Imparter screen. "Hey, Councillor! Nice ears!"

"Bex–can you let me finish this up?" Kesler tried.

"This is so cool, Kitty Pretty is one of my favorites especially since I thought of it! Rex and Lex helped me put it together and _then_ we talked to the rest of the family and Mom modified it so it would only last for a day and we tested it a lot and made it safer and more stable and then Rex came up with the name and we started selling it! You look great, by the way, I think you should keep the look!"

Bronte only caught about half of the mile-a-minute words, but he got the gist of it: she was most likely going to spread the word to all of Foxfire.

There went his reputation.

"Can you please get ready for school?" Kesler suggested.

"I'm already ready." Bex yanked open the door behind her. "HEY, GUYS! BRONTE HAS CAT EARS!"

Bronte rubbed his temples. "I should probably go."

At that moment, a stampede of redheads burst through the door—two boys in blue Level Two uniforms, Dex, still chewing with a spoon in one hand, and Juline, hair wild and uncombed.

"This is crazy—" 

"He has slit pupils, too, it worked on _all_ of his face—" 

"THIS IS SO COOL!" 

Even Juline couldn't hide her smile.

"Do the side effects work, too?" one of the younger boys asked. "Like, do you have better hearing? Because cats have super good hearing, but I've heard that Ancients do too—"

Bronte ignored him and turned to Juline. "Are you _sure_ there's no remedy?"

"I'm sorry, but when we tried to make one, it….let's just say that my family is even crazier when they can only speak in meows," Juline laughed.

Bronte shuddered at the thought.

Kesler glanced at the clock. "Show's over, kids. Orientation starts in twenty minutes and you still need to finish your breakfast." He turned back to the Imparter. "Councillor Bronte, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you'll just have to wait it out."

This day was _not_ going to go well. 

9:00 AM

"Wow," Sophie gasped as she entered the Inflicting classroom.

"Miss Foster, we are not going to be discussing my appearance," Bronte sighed. "You're here for an inflicting lesson." 

Sophie let a giggle slip loose, but quickly rearranged her expression. "Okay. Inflicting. What are we doing?"

Bronte searched around for his lesson plans. They weren't there, which meant…..

He swore. "I was _planning_ to finish preparing for our lesson this morning, but I was so busy talking to Kesler Dizznee that I forgot." He racked his brain. "I think I wanted to work with you on targeted emotions. Identifying which emotion you want to inflict and inflicting only that one on me, instead of releasing all positivity or all negativity."

Sophie nodded. "Which one?"

"Start with pride, and we can go from there." He reconsidered her expression—Sophie _had_ been at the nobility ball last night. "Miss Foster, did you have anything to do with this?"

"What? No!"

"Are you _sure_?"

"I swear that I did not slip Kitty Pretty into your drink," Sophie promised.

Bronte nodded. "Please don't tell anyone about my…" He trailed off.

"Your catboy-ness?" Sophie laughed. "I won't, but I'm pretty sure all of Level Two knows by now thanks to Rex, Lex, and Bex."

"At least nobody has a picture of it," Bronte grumbled.

Sophie shrugged. "You're at a school full of teenagers. If that's true, it won't stay that way for long."

11:12 AM

At least the whiskers had diminished by the time the session was over.

Bronte had seriously considered heading back to Eternalia for lunch, but he had a meeting with the goblins about security less than an hour after his inflicting session with Sophie was over. It was faster to eat at Foxfire, even if it meant stares from the Mentors who hadn't seen him yet that day.

He scanned the room for the emptiest table. Most of them were at least half-full, and Bronte knew that sitting at any one of those tables would get him stares at best and questions about not only the cat ears but also being a Councillor at worst. A table in the far corner seemed like his safest bet; it had only two occupants. Magnate Leto and….Sir Tiergan. 

His relationship with Tiergan was complicated, to say the least. He'd apologized to the Black Swan for leading the charge on arresting Prentice long ago, but Bronte knew better than anyone that an apology was only a very small step towards making things right. If Tiergan was angry at him for the rest of eternity….well, Bronte couldn't blame him. 

Still, he'd take righteous anger over questions and stares any day. He headed for the table and found a seat at the far end.

The moment he sat down, Tiergan's eyebrows jumped an inch and Leto muffled a snicker with his hand before calling out a tentative hello.

"Hello," Bronte replied.

"Is that….Kitty Pretty?" Tiergan wondered.

"Not intentionally, but yes—I think someone slipped it into my drink at the nobility gala last night, but I don't know why. Do either of you have any idea how it happened?" He tried to keep his tone calm, but he couldn't pass up the chance to ask.

"No—and I have no reason to think it was one of the Mentors, either," Leto told him.

"No." Tiergan studied Bronte's features. "I've actually seen that happen before, do you want advice?"

Definitely _not_ what Bronte had been expecting. Still, he would take anything he could get. "Okay….wait. What do you mean, you've seen it happen before?

Tiergan laughed. "Linh and Wylie teamed up to slip some of it into Tam's lushberry juice one morning to get back at him for insulting Princess Purryfins. He was furious, of course. It sparked a pretty intense prank war, but I suppose that I'm getting off topic. My point is that you should embrace your inner cat to make it go away. Meowing, clawing, maybe hissing. It will make the elixir work more intensely over a shorter period of time."

The idea sounded absolutely ridiculous, yet given how inane the elixir was, it made sense in an odd way.

"I suppose it can't hurt," Bronte sighed. 

He let out a long, yodelling _meeeooowww._

And waited.

And waited.

He checked his reflection in his spoon. He still had cat ears. His nose was still pink. And the last traces of the whiskers were still present. 

"That did absolutely nothing, didn't it?" he finally asked. 

Tiergan shrugged. "It made my day, if that counts." 

"Are you _serious_?"

"To be honest, I didn't think you'd fall for it."

"You'd fall for it, too, if you had Council business in less than an hour and you were going to show up as a _cat_ ," Bronte grumbled.

"Just use makeup to cover the whiskers and to make your nose look more elf-ish," Tiergan suggested.

"I don't really wear makeup." That was a lie.

Leto smiled. "I have it from a reliable source that not only do you wear makeup, Oralie has given you a makeover multiple times."

"I lost a bet! And there was a very important Council event. And then she was having a bad night so I suggested it, and then—" Bronte trailed off. "Never mind. Thanks, I guess. I'll see if she can help."

11:43 AM

"This is amazing," Oralie grinned, taking out a makeup brush. 

"Don't start," Bronte warned her, reluctantly sinking down into the pink chair in front of her pink dressing table. 

"Relax, I've got it covered. Now, do you want me to make your face look more feline? We've only got about fifteen minutes before the meeting, but I can probably make your skin look furry if you want."

Bronte recoiled in horror.

"I'm just messing with you," Oralie laughed as she began to apply the makeup to his face. "So, how did this happen?"

"My best guess is that someone slipped it into my drink last night," Bronte sighed. "I'm never attending one of those stupid balls again."

"I think they're kind of fun, aside from how we always get mobbed because we're Councillors."

" _Exactly._ Half the Regents there stepped on my feet. I should have taken after Sophie and Dex: spent most of the time with snacks and people who I actually like, then left early." He paused. "I've been in here for five minutes without making my usual comment about how _pink_ this place is, so let me say it. This place is too pink."

Oralie rolled her eyes. 

"Does the rest of the Council know?" Bronte wondered.

"I doubt it. We're all on individual assignments this afternoon—and by the time we regroup in the evening, the effects should have faded….wait."

"What?"

"We have that meeting with Team Valiant in the late afternoon, remember? To follow up on some of the scrolls they retrieved from the Neverseen hideout. Sophie thinks that they're written in some kind of super-ancient cipher that one of us might recognize."

Bronte sighed. "The kids are going to have a field day with this—could it have been one of them who slipped the elixir into my drink?" 

"It's possible, but not worth fussing over," Oralie shrugged.

"You'd think about it very differently if it was you who had the cat ears."

"Let's just get going." Oralie stepped back to take a look at her work. "It looks good. You'll need a hat for the ears, and maybe sunglasses to cover up your pupils, but other than that you're good to go."

Bronte took a look at himself in the mirror. Aside from his ears and eyes, he looked….almost like himself again, though the makeup was a little uncomfortable and his nose still wasn't the right shape. Still, he could pass for normal around those who didn't know him well. "Thanks, I owe you one."

Oralie stopped putting her makeup away. "Can the 'one' you owe me be that you'll drink this elixir again?"

"Never in a million years," Bronte declared, but he couldn't help but laugh at the thought.

3:28 PM

The meeting with the goblins had gone surprisingly well: they had agreed on security arrangements for Eternalia and Lumenaria, in addition to adding a DNA scanner for access to the whirlpools that carried people to Atlantis to prevent the Neverseen from entering. And if either of the goblins they'd been meeting with noticed a difference with Bronte, they hadn't said anything about it to his face. 

Unfortunately, after Oralie had made an Imparter call to one of their Emissaries to arrange the installation of the DNA scanner, the next step in Bronte's day was a Council meeting. And while the whiskers were now completely gone and his pupils were _slightly_ more rounded, they were still somewhat slit-like, and his ears remained atop his head and furry.

He decided to keep the hat and sunglasses on for the Council meeting; the trick had worked with the goblins, and hopefully it would save him further humiliation. 

Unfortunately, his usual seat was right next to Clarette.

"What happened?" she asked him the moment he sat down, her eyebrows furrowing. "Your facial features look off, and...is that makeup?"

"I don't want to discuss it," Bronte mumbled.

"I'm serious, you look a lot more….feline than normal. Something about your face shape and your nose. And why are you wearing a hat and sunglasses? It's cloudy out today."

"I think we'd _all_ like to know the answer to that one," Alina called from across the table.

"No pressure," Emery added with a warning glance at Alina. "But we're not pressed for time, and I'm quite curious as well."

Alina rolled her eyes. "If this is some secret between you and Oralie again—"

"The only secret between the two of us is the location of Bronte's chocolate stash," Oralie interrupted.

"I'm serious."

"It's not a big deal," Bronte tried.

Zarina raised an eyebrow. "If you don't want to tell us, I think we'll be able to pressure it out of you with enough puppy dog eyes and threats of glitter."

"Don't start," Bronte warned. "Fine. But it stays confidential."

He removed his hat and sunglasses.

" _What?_ " Alina burst out, recoiling in horror. 

The rest of the Council had a variety of reactions: forced calm (Emery, Velia), shock (Ramira, Liora, Noland), muffled snickers (Darek, Terik, Zarina), and, oddly enough, interest (Clarette). 

"My best guess is that someone slipped an elixir into my drink last night, but I don't know who or why," Bronte explained. "I talked to Kesler Dizznee about it, but he couldn't reverse it, so I'm going to be stuck like this for a few more hours before it wears off." He paused, scanning the eleven other people in the room. It wasn't unlike Councillors to prank each other, even if this one had gone a little too far….."Do any of you know anything about it?"

This sparked an outburst of denials and rationale; it was finally concluded that none of the Councillors had put the elixir in Bronte's drink. Darek put a stop to the last of the discussion when he asked "Can we get a picture for the scrapbook?" 

Murmurs of agreement echoed around the room.

Bronte groaned. "I was hoping that we could just forget about this." Then again, if it stopped the arguing…"Fine." 

Darek took out his Imparter and clicked.

"Let's get started," Emery decided. "Velia, Ramira, any updates on Loamnore and the dwarven traitors?"

Bronte had never been so grateful for Emery's consistency in his life.

5:04 PM

Oddly enough, nobody on Team Valiant made a snide comment on his appearance when he let them into his castle for the meeting. 

He supposed that it _could have_ been that his nose was almost back to normal, or that the teenagers had already seen him at Foxfire and Wylie had heard about it from his father, or something along those lines. However, none of the five of them were making eye contact with him—or each other, for that matter—which seemed suspicious, to say the least.

It was when Sophie quietly took out the scrolls from her bag and set them on the table—no jokes about the Neverseen's plans, no snark about how most of his furniture was black, no snide comments—that he got seriously concerned. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," Sophie muttered.

"You look like you're afraid that I'm mad at you—did one of _you_ slip this in my drink?"

It was obvious now. Team Valiant had been at the ball last night. Dex could have gotten the elixir from his parents' store. And they had no problems messing with him, especially Sophie. It would have been all too easy for one of them to slip it into his goblet when he wasn't looking.

" _Did_ you?" he demanded.

Silence.

"You should be very aware that if this was done by you five, and done intentionally, this could very well result in all of you being removed from the nobility, if not more."

"It was a mistake," Stina blurted out.

"What?"

"It was a mistake," Biana agreed. "Councillor Bronte, it wasn't meant for you."

"Who _was_ it meant for?" Bronte demanded.

"Cassius," Dex admitted. "We put the elixir in his drink on the snack table. But all of the goblets look similar, so you must have grabbed his instead."

"It was a group effort," Sophie explained. "I had the idea of pranking Cassius at the nobility ball."

"The elixir was my idea, and Dex was the one who obtained the bottle," Wylie continued. 

"I vanished and slipped it into his drink," Biana added. 

"I was the distraction," Stina finished. "Wylie, Sophie, and Dex hung out by the snack table to cover for Biana while I badgered him with a ton of questions about what it's like being an Empath in the nobility. But he got so distracted talking about his accomplishments that he must have swapped goblets with you by mistake."

Bronte rubbed his temples, not sure whether he wanted to laugh or scream.

"Are you _sure_ that it wasn't intentional?" he finally asked. 

Oralie traced her hand through the air. "They're telling the truth."

All his suspections, all of his mistrust…..and it just had been a prank that had gone wrong?

" _Why?_ " he demanded.

"Remember that lecture you and Oralie gave me before we went to Loamnore?" Sophie asked. "About how I needed to step up as a leader?"

"Yes."

"One of the things Oralie mentioned was how the Council does lots of team bonding activities, especially whenever a new Councillor arrives, to make sure they can trust each other. I thought that Team Valiant should do something similar, so the five of us got together to prepare for the nobility ball, so Biana could do our makeup and stuff and we could coordinate our outfits and things like that. And then I got the idea about pranking Cassius, and….it snowballed from there."

"I don't know whether to be impressed or furious," Bronte sighed.

"Go with impressed," Sophie told him. 

"Are we going to get in trouble for this?" Stina asked, fiddling with her hair.

"It was a mistake," Bronte sighed. "And…..it wasn't intended to do me direct harm. So I'm going with no—but I do want all five of you to explain exactly what happened to your parents when you get home this evening. Even though it was accidental, this could have had disastrous diplomatic consequences, even if the elixir went to Cassius instead of me. Do you five realize how immature this was?"

Silence.

"I'm not saying that I approve of Lord Cassius, because I don't. But he is a member of the nobility, and I'm sure that if you attempt to pull something like this again, everyone is going to be far less lenient. So I want you to promise that you will not attempt anything in this vein again."

There were murmurs of agreement.

"Good. Now, let's get on with the scrolls."

The meeting flew by. Bronte recognized the language in three of them, written in an almost-forgotten ogre script. Two more looked vaguely elvin, though jumbled, and they agreed to bring that one to the next Council meeting. Several more all seemed to be written in one of three ciphers, so Sophie offered to return those to the Black Swan so they could try to break the code.

After about an hour, everyone was getting tired, and Sophie almost dozed off in her armchair, at which point Dex raised his hand and asked, "Anyone else think that that we should end this so Sophie can get some sleep?" 

Five other hands followed in quick succession.

"You can keep the rest of the scrolls for now, and we can investigate them more next time," Bronte decided. 

"Thanks." Sophie tucked the last of the scrolls back into her bag. "I am feline sleepy—I''ll try to have a purr-fect night of sleep tonight. Hopefully, it'll only take me a meow-ment to fall asleep and I'll have paw-sitive dreams."

"Did you just—" Bronte stammered.

"Yes," Sophie grinned. 

Before Bronte could respond, she was out the door. 

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
